I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic messaging systems, and more particularly, to a pager-based community alerting system for informing subscribers of immediate or impending conditions so that an appropriate response may be made.
II. Discussion of the Prior Art
The prior art includes a large number of patents and publications relating to emergency warning systems whereby members of the public can be alerted to such events as dangerous weather conditions, terrorist activities, environmental hazards and the like. The Lemelson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,084,510 describes a danger warning and emergency response system having an extensive listing of prior art relating to such systems. The apparatus of the Lemelson '510 patent is intended to provide emergency information to large multitudes of persons who may be in harms way. Given the fact that the implementation described in the '510 patent calls for satellites, pilotless aircraft, a downlink to a command center having one or more computers for analyzing received information from the satellites to arrive at a “danger index” as well as a ground base radio broadcasting system, the implementation cost would price the system out of reach of most subscribers.
The prior art is also replete with systems specifically designed for warning citizens of impending natural disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, heavy snow and ice storms in an affected geographical area. For example, the Uber et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,633,515 describes an emergency broadcast alert system that comprises a radio receiver referred to as a “scanner” that is designed to lock onto a broadcasted signal in the presence of noise. The receiver then repeatedly scans within a predetermined frequency band, looking for a transmitted signal from the National Weather Service and the receiver then provides an audible alarm so that one would, therefore, have to resort to broadcast television or radio to find out the storm path and expected time of arrival in a given geographical area. Thus, while the Uber system is relatively inexpensive, it lacks a capability to promptly advise a listener of important information relating to a potentially dangerous storm.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,873 to Cragun also describes a weather warning system that includes a communication link for receiving transmitted alerts (weather warnings/watches). It also includes a user interface that allows for selection of different geographic areas so that weather conditions affecting areas other than those of interest are filtered out. For proper operation, it is essential that the system be preprogrammed to identify geographical areas and weather intensity parameters. The ability to program the system may exceed the capabilities of many end-users.
Thus, a need exists for a subscriber-based alerting system that is inexpensive to implement and, thus, well within the budget of most persons occupying houses, apartments and other residential units as well as commercial and government establishments and that requires little or no manual involvement, yet is both versatile and reliable in operation.